Facing a tough comp that included a big one-time payment, profits fell year-over-year at Centrus, Bethesda, Md., in the second quarter of 2021, though core operations remained essentially healthy and the company scored a crucial regulatory blessing for a new enrichment cascade.
The fuel reseller and enrichment technology developer posted quarterly net income attributable to common shareholders of just under $11 million, or 79 cents a share, in the second quarter, down from over $31.5 million, or $3.19 a share, in the 2021 quarter. Revenue fell to just under $62.5 million from more than $75.5 million a year ago.
The 2021 second quarter included a one-time payment of nearly $32.5 million, related to a customer’s bankruptcy.
During the second quarter of 2020, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Centrus a license amendment to produce high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), with more than a 19% concentration of the uranium-235 isotope, at the company’s planned 16-machine enrichment cascade at the Department of Energy’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio. The machines, or at least their design, could eventually be adapted to produce highly enriched uranium for U.S. nuclear weapons programs.
Centrus’ flagship Separative Work Units segment had around $42 million in quarterly revenue, down from more than $58.5 a year ago. Net of the one-time payment from the second quarter of 2020, the segment’s revenue would have been $19 million higher than a year ago.
At Centrus’ Technical Services Segment, which includes the company’s cost-share HALEU contract with DOE, quarterly revenue was a little more than $17 million, up from around $12 million last year.
Netting out the effect of last year’s one-time payment, Centrus’ gross profits for the second quarter of 2021 would have risen $5.7 million year-over-year, the company said. The figure does not take into account, among other things, taxes or interest payments on debt. For the first half of 2021 gross profit would have been down $2.2 million, even without counting the one-time payment in the year-ago quarter.
For 2022, Centrus’ gross profits were about $17 million on the quarter and just under $29 million for the half, down from nearly $44 million and $63.5 million in the respective periods a year ago.
Centrus’ revenue sometimes post extreme swings from one quarter to the next depending on when utilities have scheduled delivery of nuclear fuel. In the 2021 second quarter, Centrus paid lower prices to move higher volumes of uranium fuel, eating into profits.
Editor’s note, 08/12/2021, 4:02 p.m. Eastern time: the story was corrected to show the periods in which Centrus received a one time payment, and in which the company moved more uranium for lower prices.
